The colour indicates who has control of the cache. The 4 clan colours or white / grey for no control. If you hover amouse over the icon it will tell you who controls it.

All valid dZ caches contribute to finders, regardless of when they were hidden. You personally did not accrue any points for hiding them because they pre-dated the game starting. A finder will still get points for finding which will be added to the cache.

Hi Peter,Seems extremely unfair to me that the finder can gain points for caches placed by the cache owner prior to joining dz, yet the cache owner gets no reward what so ever with regards to karma points. So for all those who have supported GCA over the years by placing numerous caches get left out.So essentially the game has relied on the goodwill of past geocachers who have suported GCA....but get nothing in return.Not happy and quite frankly a slap in the face.Obviously there would be very few GA caches out there for dz players to findwithout using those past hides.

Hi Peter,Rather glad you haven't replied to my earlier tirade...as I wouldn't either.I would like to publicly apologise profusely for my previous post as it was made in an extreme heat of the moment.I could have edited the previous post but feel that would have been a cowards way...not in my dna.I also appreciate 100% all the work yourself and others put into not only site development and maintenance but in developing new ideas/games for us all to enjoy.Maybe the issue of karma points on all caches isn't a problem for other cachers...I have no idea.I realise that dz is in ongoing development and maybe the issue I raised hasn't come up.Many thanks again for all your hard work and I do apologise again for my previous over the top reply.My apologies also for opening a new topic...as I didn't see the existing one.Maybe this one can be added to previous open topuc.

The game is mine and mine alone. There was no input from the Senate or the other developers on the team. I thought it up. I built it. I deployed it. I manage it. I fix it. I decide when special events occur (but suggestions are always welcomed). In other words, there is no-one to blame but me should a game action, component, decision or bug arise. I took it upon myself to make sure we were the first (and currently only) site in the world that offers an add-on to the game of geocaching. Any other site is a shadow copy of the sorts of games I have been programming for this site since 2006 (credit to to the original creators of Fleet to Federation concept ADAcache and Cached).

dZ is an opt-in game for the finder.- A choice is offered to the member and they choose when (if) they want to start and their choice of clan.

dZ is an opt-in game for the hider, but only in terms of Karma.- I opened every single physical cache to be a participating piece in the game. As you indicated without enough game pieces the game would fail because no one would join as there weren't enough caches and if there were't enough players no-one would hide. i.e. Classic chicken and egg. Rightly or wrongly I made a decision.

You only start accruing points from the day you joined the game. - Points are about what you do.- You accrue find points from the day you join the game. I considered an open ended back date to the day you started caching and discovered that some folks would be rocketed forward in levels. Significantly. >10,000 immediate points in a few cases. Back dating rarely occurs in games in the real world. You only start when you start.- If you hide a cache after you joined the game, then you start to accrue Karma Points. In this case Karma is a contributor to you and your participation in the game from the day you joined. Caches you hid before the game were not hidden as part of the game so Karma does not accrue. In simple terms you do not get to claim the Karma for caches that pre-existed you joining the game because Karma is all about what you do in the game.

GCA caches only are involved.- I'm not going to get further into a them vs. us war in this situation.

Only physical caches (and B&W caches) are included.- A physical cache hide requires you to visit the location and place a cache. i.e. Game effort.- A non-physical cache such as virtual, locationless, history, webcam, event, etc "could" be achieved from your computer, so they were left out as being a potential "easy way" to game the game. It was a tough decision to make but I made it and here we are.

Happy to have commentary and suggestions for improvement come through. We cannot improve if we think everything is perfect.

Many thanks for your reply. I can now understand the reasoning behind your decisions which seem all fair and square. I guess no matter what happens there will always be some better positioned than others...as you say.I certainly appreciate the enormous work involved in setting up the game and believe it's a very clever and positive step forward.At the very least it will mean a much greater interest in geocachers actually getting out there and finding GA caches....for as we know they tend to get very few visits after an initial flurry....so hopefully the dz game can overcome this to a certain degree.Sorry for the previous angst once again and many thanks for your detailed explanation....very much appreciated indeed.I'll certainly continue to get GA caches out there...when able.....as I'm sure many more cachers will now do.Regards...sirius.